Home automation or management systems which permit increased control of at least some of the electrical subsystems in a dwelling have begun to replace or to supplement conventional wiring systems. These systems can provide automatic control of or can provide increased user control options for such systems as electrical power and lighting, heating ventilation and air conditioning, audio/video home entertainment systems, security systems, telecommunications equipment, and landscape maintenance systems such as automatic lawn sprinklers.
These home automation systems can be integrated systems in which control of all subsystems is managed by a central system controller. Other systems rely upon the use of distributed intelligence in appliances or subsystems, which can talk to each other, but which do not require a central controller. There are a number of physical control communications media for both the integrated and the distributed systems. Control signals can be transmitted over twisted pair wire, coaxial cables, fiber optic cables, special low voltage cables, and by power line carrier systems which superimpose signals on the alternating current on conventional 12 or 14 AWG branch wiring conductors. To date, no single approach has proven superior either in terms of performance or in terms of economics. Those systems which provide significantly enhanced features have tended to be relatively expensive, while inexpensive systems offer limited features and can be unreliable.
One example of an integrated home automation system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,552. That system uses a system controller which provides control communications over thirty polled branches, each of which have thirty input/output nodes. The system controller polls each of the nodes for inputs and or output which can be in the form of status and control packets consisting of several bytes or can be in the form of longer messages. Each node can serve as the interface for either a simple device, such as switching device for a lighting fixture, or a relatively more sophisticated device containing distributed intelligence for communication at a higher level with the system controller or with appliances on other nodes. In order to handle the more sophisticated messaging communications, each node interface has to have greater capability than would be necessary for the more simple status and control communication. In order to decrease response time to status and control communications, which is necessary for power and lighting control, the system controller in this system uses two processors which simultaneously poll the nodes on the system. A control processor provides for more rapid status and control information while a message processor polls the nodes for messages.
One of devices which can be used in the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,552 is an input/output module. This input/output module contains both the branch interface and an appliance interface device described in that patent. Eight single bit inputs in the form of optoisolators and eight single bit outputs in the form of relays can be used in this input/output module and these parallel inputs and outputs are converted into a serial bit stream for communication with the system controller. Inputs from doorbells and other sensors and outputs such as lawn sprinklers and draperies can be integrated into this system by this input/output module.
A dimmer control which can be used with the system controller described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,552 is described in U.S. Patent application Ser. No. 08/212,486 in the name of Lee Steely, Darryl Bryans and Lance Jump. This patent application discloses a dimmer block which is used on one of the branches to control incandescent and low voltage lighting loads. All inputs to this dimmer must originate with a separate low voltage switch located remotely from the dimmer block or from the System Controller. Many of the same functions, such as ramping, jumping to a preset level, and extended ramping are implemented by the device described in this prior pending patent application are also implemented by the dimming control described herein.
A multiposition switch which can be used as part of the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,552 is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/218,964, filed in the name of Darryl Bryans, H. R. Colbaugh, David Kosen, Lance Jump and Robert Pitts. The low voltage switch device described in that prior pending patent application can be programmed to activate switch blocks containing relays and dimmer blocks containing triacs by configuring the dynamic event action table in the system controller described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,552.
The Lutron HomeWorks Interface Panel provides an interface between inputs and outputs for a lighting control system. The interface panel consists of two components; an enclosure and an electronics sub-panel. The electronics subpanel serves as a system manager which receives all switch information, processes commands and transmits system data. The inputs include keypads, security system contact closures, RS 232 serial two-way communications with PC's and other systems, and a telephone interface. The RS-232 interface facilitates communication to and from home controllers and personal computers in an ASCII format. Outputs are either star wired or wired on a Class 2 bus wire platform. Outputs on the bus wire platform include multi-channel controls, local single channel control dimmers and switches, master keypads and an RS 232 port. The local control dimmers and switches contain triacs and an integrated circuit and are daisy-chained on the bidirectional communications bus. Power relay cards and output interface cards for on/off control of external equipment, such as audio/video systems are located on the star wire platform.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,207 discloses another system for controlling multiple loads from a central location and from local three-way controls. This system employs an interface device which receives low voltage signal inputs from a master keypad which can be used to activate multiple local controls. The local controls are attached by a line voltage circuit to the interface and switches in the interface and in the local controls can both turn the power to the load on or off or can dim the load.